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President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, and Second Lady Jill Biden wave to supporters following Obama's speech on election night in Chicago.

In the early morning of Wednesday, November 7, 2012, Mitt Romney had the more difficult job; Barack Obama had the bigger, more important one. They both executed them beautifully.

Romney went first, of course. He gave a short address that was more heartfelt than anything I can remember seeing him deliver on the campaign trail. As Andrew Sullivan wrote, it was "one of the most graceful and gracious concession speeches I can recall. I thought for a split-second: what if this Romney had run?" The Republican candidate began by saying that he had called the president to congratulate him and immediately added, "This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation." The message of healing and conciliation was unequivocal.

After giving impassioned thanks to vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, his wife, his family, and everyone who had a part in his campaign, Romney went back to the theme of mending the political fabric and working together:

The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work. And we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. We look to our teachers and professors. . . . We look to our pastors and priests and rabbis and counselors of all kinds. . . We look to our parents, for in the final analysis, everything depends on the success of our homes. We look to job creators of all kinds. . . . And we look to Democrats and Republicans in government at all levels to put the people before the politics. I believe in America. I believe in the people of America.

He concluded: "I so wish—I so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction. But the nation chose another leader. And so Ann and I join with you to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation. Thank you, and God bless America." It was a beautiful job.

President Obama spoke for several times as long and gave one of his best speeches, combining the hope and uplift of his campaign for president with the toughness and embrace of hard reality of more recent times. He began by framing his victory in the highest way, as a signal yet characteristic moment in American history, and by reaffirming his belief that American community is as crucial as American individualism:

Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward. It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family, and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.

He then said something that could have been as much about him personally as about the campaign and the nation: ". . . While our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come."

Like Romney, he next said that he had called his opponent, and he thanked his vice-presidential candidate, his wife, his family, and everyone who worked on his campaign, in that order. Also like Romney, he moved from there straight to healing and reconciliation. He said he plans to sit down with Romney to see how they can work together. That part of his speech began:

When we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy. That won’t change after tonight. And it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty, and we can never forget that as we speak, people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today. But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future.

Those shared hopes, he said, include having the world's best schools and teachers, its best innovators, its strongest military, and its respect, as "a generous America . . . a compassionate America . . . a tolerant America." He said:

"We will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. . . . but that common bond is where we must begin. . . . And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together."

In discussing working together with his political opponents, he shrewdly showcased his toughness and strength, saying that "what makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on Earth," and that he had seen the power of those bonds in:

those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back. I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm. And I saw it just the other day in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his eight-year-old daughter whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.

All at once he reminded us of the killing of Osama bin Laden, of his invaluable cooperation last week with New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and of his passage of epochal health care reform legislation. All in a passage of utter uplift. That is great speechmaking. In the address's climax, he said:

And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. . . . I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead. . . . I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunities and new security for the middle class. . . . I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America.

And together, with your help and God’s grace, we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on earth. Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.

The president finished on a high note that combined unalloyed optimism, clear-eyed realism about the difficulties ahead, and a statement of the clear philosophical divide that separates him from many on the libertarian right.

An extremely challenging period lies ahead. Bitter fights will divide us terribly. But we are lucky to have begun with such constructive, wise, and heartening remarks from the two candidates in the just-ended presidential race.

Read the transcript of Romney's remarks here and of Obama's remarks here.